Although I was a late comer to the circle of friends I now gather with to mourn your passing, although we haven’t physically seen each other for about a decade – we were still friends and you were thought of if not daily, at least weekly. And, of course, you will be missed. Not just by me, but by a league of friends, family and fans.

From where we first met as an immortal vampire and a neurotic Russian with dominance issues on a Starship, through to bouncing ideas off each other for story ideas, talking publishers through to being reviewers of each other’s work and chatting about Linkedin just last week. We both embraced, lived and breathed writing in a way that only a few others I know can understand.

You introduced me to that hairy man who had been living in your back room and, eventually, I went and did the dumb thing of marrying him, having a family and joining his family to mine. And, as you were part of his extended family, you too became a part of mine. You gave me my first bed to sleep in when I moved to Brisbane, opened your heart and home to me and accepted me for what I was… which hadn’t really happened in my life up until that point. So you touched and changed my life in ways I don’t think either of us knew until I now find myself reflecting on it all.

I cannot fathom exactly how much you are going to be missed as the loss I feel is overpowering enough… add to that the hundreds, if not thousands of lives you’ve touched and I’m surprised the world got up today and kept going along as normal as if nothing had happened.